Cumberland councillors to weigh up ‘Save Cumberland’s Taxi Trade’ petition
- Perry Richardson
- Nov 16, 2025
- 4 min read
The Regulatory Committee meeting on 17 November will consider the “Save Cumberland’s Taxi Trade” petition alongside ongoing work on the authority’s new Taxi and Private Hire Policy. The petition, launched on Change.org on 17 July 2024, had attracted 1,449 signatures by 16 October 2024. However, only 430 signatories were confirmed as living, working or studying within the Cumberland district.
Under the council’s constitution, only those local signatures count towards the 1,000-signature threshold required to trigger a full council debate. Officers concluded there was no justification to include support from outside the area because the taxi and private hire policy applies only within Cumberland’s own licensing boundary. The petition has therefore been sent to the Regulatory Committee instead of full council.
Petitioners say new rules risk loss of 200 cabs
The petition organiser, who is due to address the committee for up to five minutes, argues that regulations proposed from 2025 would put many small firms out of business and could remove “more than 200 taxis” from the local fleet. The text warns that services most at risk include late-night trips home, regular bookings for older passengers, home to school contracts, adult social care transport, NHS work for patients and staff, and airport runs.
Trade representatives claim the changes arrive at a time when the area already faces a “severe shortage” of vehicles. They say the combined effect would hit regular residents as well as public sector contracts that rely heavily on hackney carriage and private hire operators.
Wheelchair access and fleet mix at centre of dispute
A key complaint in the petition is that lifting previous controls on hackney carriage vehicle types in some towns will push new entrants towards cheaper standard saloon cars rather than wheelchair accessible vehicles, given the cost gap between a lower-priced “normal taxi” and a much more expensive wheelchair capable cab. The petition warns this could reduce availability for disabled passengers who depend on wheelchair accessible provision.
The council’s report disputes some of that interpretation. It states that former district councils did not operate a cap on taxi numbers, but in some areas they did require new hackney carriage vehicles to be wheelchair accessible. That local condition has not been carried over into the new Cumberland-wide policy. Instead, the current policy structure uses age limits for most taxis, but those limits do not apply to wheelchair accessible vehicles.
Officers point councillors to the Department for Transport’s Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Licensing Best Practice Guidance, published in November 2023, which covers quantity controls and refers to the use of unmet demand surveys where local authorities are considering limits on hackney carriage numbers.
Council says policy is about standards, not cutting numbers
The report stresses that the taxi and private hire policy review was launched to align Cumberland with updated Department for Transport statutory standards and best practice. Officers say there has been no evidence during policy development of an increase in surrendered plates and no identified drop in driver numbers linked to the new framework.
However, the report accepts that taxi availability at particular times of day may be a more relevant issue than the raw number of vehicles. As a result, one of the suggested actions is for licensing officers to research the cost and viability of commissioning an unmet demand survey to test whether current hackney carriage provision meets public need across the district.
Policy process and petition handling under scrutiny
Cumberland’s draft Taxi and Private Hire Policy first went out to consultation in July 2024. Initially scheduled to close on 30 August, the consultation was extended to 18 October because of the size and complexity of the documents. The Regulatory Committee first considered consultation feedback in November 2024 and again in January 2025. The petition itself was not available in time to be tabled at those earlier meetings.
The report confirms that the petition has been processed under the council’s official Scheme for Submission of Petitions, which forms part of the constitution. That scheme gives the Regulatory Committee several options. Members can agree to the action requested by petitioners, arrange for the organiser to meet the relevant portfolio holder, hold a separate meeting with the organiser, or write back setting out the committee’s position.
Officers underline that any decision must sit within the council’s legal powers and within taxi and private hire legislation. If the organiser is unhappy with how the committee deals with the matter, they can ask an Overview and Scrutiny Committee to review the response, with the option for further recommendations or referral to full council.
Next steps for Cumberland’s taxi policy
The report to councillors recommends that the petition is considered as part of wider ongoing policy work rather than in isolation. Suggested actions include exploring an unmet demand survey, carrying out a district-wide review of taxi ranks and holding a focused meeting with the petition organiser to examine whether any material policy changes are needed alongside more minor formatting updates already identified by officers.
